GDC 2013 REVEALS RETURN OF THE CLASSIC GAME POSTMORTEM SERIES
FOR THIRD CONSECUTIVE YEAR

SAN FRANCISCO – January 29, 2013 – By popular
demand, the Game Developers Conference (GDC) is bringing back the
Classic Games Postmortem series for the third consecutive year with
sessions taking a close look at four seminal games at GDC 2013.
Organizers have revealed that postmortems for
Crystal Castles,
Myst,
Pinball Construction Set and
X-COM: UFO Defense are confirmed for this year’s
conference. Organized by the UBM Tech Game Network, GDC 2013 will
take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Convention Center in San
Francisco, California.

The Classic Game Postmortems series provides GDC attendees with
sessions that examine the development of some of the industry's
most influential landmark titles. The series debuted at GDC
2011 as part of the conference’s twenty-fifth anniversary
celebration and has returned each year since due to its
ever-increasing popularity. For this reason, the GDC has also
begun to introduce Classic Game Postmortem sessions at its other
conferences around the world.

This year, the original designer and programmer of
Crystal Castles, Franz Lanzinger, will discuss secrets of
the classic Atari arcade game
; Robyn Miller co-director of
Myst, the best-selling PC game of the 1990s, will share
how he and his brother created a game that remains relevant more
than 20 years later; Bill Budge, father of the seminal
Pinball Construction Set will lay out one of the earliest
examples of an in-game editor – a title that game developer
legend Will Wright has credited as a key influence on the
simulation games that launched him to stardom; and Julian Gollop
will reveal tactics he deployed in directing, co-designing,
co-programming and co-drawing
X-COM: UFO Defense. Additional details for each
postmortem are as follows:

· Celebrating its 30
th anniversary this year and notable for being the first
arcade action game with an actual ending,
Crystal Castles broke ground as a fast paced yet
nonviolent 3D isometric game. The title was Atari's first
arcade game with an ingenious secret warp system and impressed
designers regardless of not using a traditional
“attract” mode. Franz Lanzinger, the original
programmer and designer, will share rare documents, sketches,
photos, video and actual 6502 code with GDC attendees during his
Classic Game Postmortem.

· Described as being
an immersive experience that draws in players and doesn’t let
them go,
Myst is the best-selling PC game of the 1990s and is also
often attributed as the game that sold CD-ROM drives since its
majestic 3D world was too large for floppy disks. Developed by Cyan
and filled with puzzles and mysteries that unraveled in front of
players' eyes,
Myst could be argued as a title that began the notation of
“experiencing” a game and not simply
“playing” a game. Since its release in 1993,
Myst has been remade and ported to more than 10 platforms,
including most recently the Nintendo 3DS and iOS. In his
postmortem, Robyn Miller, the original co-creator and sound
composer, will discuss the road to making a game that is still
relevant to the game community two decades later.

· Published in 1983
by Electronic Arts,
Pinball Construction Set created a new genre in videogames
that encouraged user generated content where players could trade
personalized content via floppy disk. The game's editor allowed
players to construct their own virtual pinball tables, and players
could save these tables to disk and trade them with friends. The
editor's clean and simple interface even served as inspiration to
designs behind
SimCity six years later – Sims creator Will Wright
cited
Pinball Construction Set as his key inspiration while
speaking on the GDC 2012 panel “Forgotten Tales
Remembered.” Bill Budge, the father of the seminal
Pinball entry, will lay out the blueprints for how he created his
own game and one of the earliest examples of an in-game editor.

· Firaxis' and 2K
Games' recent
X-COM: Enemy Unknown is actually a remake of a series that
began twenty years ago. It all started in 1994 with MicroProse's
UFO: Enemy Unknown, entitled
X-COM: UFO Defense in North America, a real-time base
management simulation with turn-based tactical combat and an
engaging story of alien invasion. The marriage of its distinct
Geoscape and Battlescape views represented the game's strategy and
battle modes, respectively; and they provided what felt like two
different and compelling games in one. In this postmortem, Julian
Gollop will lay out the tactics he deployed in directing,
co-designing, co-programming, and even co-drawing the first, and
often highest regarded, UFO/X-COM entry.

“Needless to say, we’re very excited about this
year’s Class Game Postmortem series line-up. The four
titles are so diverse and each one helped shape new game genres
that are still popular today,” said Meggan Scavio, GDC
general manager. “It’s always fascinating to see
original design documents from influential titles resurfaced and to
hear from the creators of iconic titles that we grew up with pass
on their knowledge to the next generation of game
developers.”

For more information about the 2012 Game Developers Conference
or to register online, visit
www.gdconf.com.

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